Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Two Sisters by Mary Hogan. The book is being released by William Morrow Paperbacks on March 4, 2014.

Amazon says this about the book: Mary Hogan’s powerful and poignant debut novel about two sisters—opposites in every way—plus their mother and the secrets and lies that define them all.

One family, two sisters, a lifetime of secrets . . .

The third child in a family that wanted only two, Muriel Sullivant has always been an outsider. Short, dark-haired and round, she worships her beautiful blonde sister, Pia, and envies the close bond she shares with their mother, Lidia. Growing up in their shadow, Muriel believes that if she keeps all their secrets—and she knows plenty, outsiders always do—they will love her, too.

But that was a long time ago. Now an adult, Muriel has accepted the disappointments in her life. With her fourth-floor walk-up apartment and entry-level New York City job, she never will measure up to Pia and her wealthy husband, their daughter, and their suburban Connecticut dream home. Muriel would like nothing better than to avoid her judgmental family altogether. One thing she does quite well.

Until the day Pia shows up to visit and share devastating news that Muriel knows she cannot tell—a secret that will force her to come to terms with the past and help her see her life and her family in unexpected new ways.

Review: Better Than Fiction edited by Don George

There are lots of places on the planet that I'd love to visit. I most likely won't make to many, if not most, of them. There's just not the time or the money to see all I'd like to see. And that's where books come in. I've traveled all over the world between the pages of a book and if it's just a vicarious experience, it's been a delight anyway. Don George has collected true travel stories from many of today's highly acclaimed fiction writers in his collection, Better Than Fiction, a collection that allows readers to travel widely through the pens and eyes of their favorite current writers.

As is almost always the case, some of the stories were stronger than others and some of them were of more interest to me as a reader than others. The notion of travel and the destinations were wildly varying as well. Written by fiction writers rather than travel writers, it was surprising to see that some of the offerings were quite weak in narrative structure, coming across as meandering anecdotes with no clear story to them. Some of the stories were very personal, such as Isabel Allende's tale of visiting India and finding the inspiration to celebrate the memory of her daughter by creating a much needed charitable organization. Some of the stories told of traveling into not a different country but a different state of being, such as Joyce Carol Oates' story of a tour through San Quentin. Many of the stories, though, did capture the writers' journeys into cultures not their own and the adventures they stumbled on or, in some cases, caused to happen to them in these foreign places. Because the stories are relatively short, readers can dip into the book when they only have a brief amount of reading time  There's no reason to read the tales in order either.  It is most assuredly a sampler.

While it was interesting to be introduced to the different writers' voices in these brief snapshots, I'm not certain I've added to my list of places to see before I die nor was I inspired to search out the fiction of anyone I hadn't already read, which was a disappointment but perhaps not wholly fair either since non-fiction travel tales are not the general métier of the selected authors. In general, it was a pleasant and occasionally diverting read but not quite all I expected.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Ravenscliffe by Jane Sanderson
The Wedding Bees by Sarah-Kate Lynch
Better Than Fiction edited by Don George
I Shall Be Near to You by Erin Lindsay McCabe

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Quiet by Susan Cain
When You Wish Upon a Duke by Isabella Bradford
This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash

Reviews posted this week:

And the Miss Ran Away with the Rake by Elizabeth Boyle
Ravenscliffe by Jane Sanderson
Silver by Andrew Motion

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Wedding Bees by Sarah-Kate Lynch
Better Than Fiction edited by Don George
I Shall Be Near to You by Erin Lindsay McCabe

Monday Mailbox

This week's mailbox arrivals:

The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating by Carole Radziwill came from Henry Holt.

Billed as a comedy, this novel about a woman whose charismatic but unfaithful husband dies, leaving her to reinvent herself and find love again sounds light and entertaining.

The House of Memories by Monica McInerney came from NAL.

This novel about grief, escape, and the ways in which we are forever tied together with those we love set in a house that holds good memories looks lovely.

When the Cypress Whispers by Yvette Manessis Corporon came from Harper and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

A magical bond between Greek grandmother and American granddaughter features in this novel about a young woman who has suffered great grief, moved through it, and claimed what she thinks is a wonderful life. I do enjoy stories about the bonds between the generations.

Fallen Beauty by Erika Robuck came from NAL for a blog tour.

Robuck has written some wonderful tales of seemingly inconsequential people in the orbit of famous authors and this one about Edna St. Vincent Millay and the scandalous seamstress who creates some of her costumes promises to be wonderful too.

Vintage by Susan Gloss came from William Morrow.

I love the idea of the things in a vintage store having back stories and connecting the women who buy or sell things there so this one should be fantastic.

The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger came from Crown.

A lawyer who's never handled a divorce case coupled with a high society wife who says it's her first divorce too, this should be pretty darn funny and I'm looking forward to some laughs.

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday Salon: How I plan to spend the Super Bowl

Today's a big day for a lot of people. Not for me. I really honestly couldn't care less about the Super Bowl, or any football for that matter. Now when the Olympics start this month, all bets are off because I LOVE the Olympics. My reading will take an enormous hit. But today, meh; not so much. I have a long history of reading during the game and only looking up for the commercials. My then boyfriend, now husband, invited me to come to his off campus house in college to watch the big game. His team was even playing. Being a good girlfriend, I went but I took a book with me and spent the duration of the game reading and writing letters to friends from home. He never could claim that I didn't walk into our relationship acting differently than I meant to go on but he is still amazed by my lack of interest, twenty plus years further on. He didn't change me on that and he didn't change me on the book buying obsession (also clearly on display long before we married). I just shrug and suggest that opposites attract. So while huge audiences are gathered around tvs all across the country, I'll be holding my own Super Bowl, pitting books against each other, deciding what to read next.

Regardless of your football allegiance, which of my books should emerge victorious?

The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott
The Last Enchantments by Charles Finch
The Race Underground by Doug Most
Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen
This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash
The House of Memories by Monica McInerney
The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating by Carole Radziwill

Only one of them can emerge victorious to be read to the accompanying noise of Seahawks and Broncos fans caring a lot more than I do about the outcome of the game. Then again, all of the books will eventually be winners and the same can't be said of both football teams today.   Just another reason books are the best.  ;-)

So leading up to today's game, my reading adventures have taken me all over. I went back to Yorkshire during Edwardian times to see what was becoming of the families dependent on the mines in the village of Netherwood. I watched as a displaced Southern belle learned to listen to her amazingly sensitive bees in matters of the heart. I traveled all over the world with writers chronicling their real life adventures. I went along as a young woman joined up to fight in the Civil War beside her husband. Where did your reading travels take you this past week?

Review: Silver by Andrew Motion

When I was young, I spent many hours with my books (not that I don't now too, mind you). I still vividly remember reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and thrilling to all the adventure and swashbuckling in it. I even bought the tiny library by our cottage a copy because they didn't have their own on the shelves, having to order it from the main branch 45 minutes away. And perhaps it's the book that inspired the lifelong fascination with pirates for staid little me. So just imagine my delight when I found that Andrew Motion had written a sequel to Treasure Island, one where Jim Hawkins' son, also named Jim Hawkins, and Long John Silver's daughter Natty return to Treasure Island to retrieve the silver that their fathers left there in favor of the gold they brought home.

Forty years after their voyage to Treasure Island, Jim Hawkins runs an inn called the Hispaniola in the lonely marshes of the Thames.  He rather plods through life, mourning the early death of his wife and telling his tale of glory again and again of a rum soaked evening. Long John Silver is blind, ravaged, and invalid in his odd, higgledy-piggledy house and taproom but still controlling and somehow, even in his aged state, capable of inspiring fear and loyalty in equal measure. The canny old pirate sends his daughter Natty to beckon to young Jim Hawkins, the son of the original Jim, and to entice him to steal the map of Treasure Island from his father with an eye to sailing back to that distant island. And young Jim, feeling an immediate pull to Natty and despite his misgivings about the old pirate, agrees.

So the two young people set out on a long voyage on the Nightingale, a ship financed by Long John Silver, captained by a benevolent, moral, old salt, and with Natty disguised as a boy. As they sail, they find the dangerous, malevolent, and unhinged nephew of one of the original pirates working in the crew on their ship casting a blight on their journey and they must prepare themselves for whatever they might encounter when they arrive at Treasure Island, knowing that their fathers had marooned three men there when they left. And when they finally arrive, they do find that it is not a deserted island as might be expected but populated by a pure evil. This evil changes the tenor of their plans entirely.

Although using the original as a starting point and being beautifully written, easily evoking the language of Stevenson, this is a much less enchanting novel. The characters are firmly good or bad with only Long John Silver retaining any air of ambiguity and reality, but of course he is only seen at the start. Natty and Jim might be intrepid adventurers but they aren't as engaging as their fathers were. The situation on Treasure Island is unexpected (really, the maroons are still alive?) and quite honestly, rather unrealistic and unbelievable, as is the attitude of the Captain, his men, and Natty and Jim given the time period in which they live. There are other occurrences on the island that also beggar belief as well but the climactic fight scene is thrilling and as desperate as any reader could want. The ending of the novel, however, is wholly unsatisfying and feels like a complete cop-out. I so wanted to love this novel that perhaps my expectations were too high. Unfortunately the thing came off as moralistic and far less inspired than the original and I don't know that those unfamiliar with the original would be able to follow it at all.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review (although I did discover, upon rearranging my shelves, that I already owned the book in hardcover).

Review: Ravenscliffe by Jane Sanderson

The Edwardian era in England was a time of great change, rife with social and political upheaval. Jane Sanderson's Ravenscliffe, the sequel to her Netherwood, is set in this transitional time period and populated with characters who highlight both the old and the new, working class, aristocracy, and a new breed of self-made man. And although I've read the first book in the series (there's another already out in England called Eden Falls), this second novel could certainly stand on its own.

Eve Williams is fresh off her culinary success in London, returned to Yorkshire and back to running the quite successful Eve's Puddings and Pies, and at the urging of her closest friend Anna, contemplating leasing a much larger house, Ravenscliffe on Netherwood Common. So much has changed in her life, so quickly and shockingly, almost all of it for the better since her beloved husband died in a mining accident. She found a way to support her family, she was befriended by the paternally benevolent Earl of Netherwood, and she discovered a deep and abiding love for the second time in her life. But there are struggles too. Her son Seth refuses to accept her fiancé, Daniel, and determined to hurt his mother the best way he knows how, he signs on to work in the mines as soon as he turns twelve. Her younger brother Silas reappears in her life and although she is thrilled, he and his newfound success, wealth, and attitude drive a wedge into the community, and more importantly between Eve and her dearest friends, Anna and union organizer Amos.

As Eve and her family and friends adjust to all the personal changes they face, the tenor in the big house is also changing. After another horrific mining accident, the Earl, although always counted among the "good" mine owners as far as that goes, sees the benefit and importance of modernizing his mine and increasing safety measures. His intelligent daughter Henrietta, still shut out from the running of most things or even just involvement because of her sex, is really the driving force behind moving the Earl into this new mindset. Heir Toby is captivated by the insouciant American, Thea, and determined to marry her despite his mother's disapproval. And Clarissa, the Countess of Netherwood, is as insulated in her cozy world of privilege as ever, concerned only with making certain that the King's long-awaited visit is a raging success and a feather in her cap socially.

These two very different worlds, working class and aristocracy both face the timely challenge of tradition versus innovation not only in people (the cosseted Clarissa and the brash Thea) but also in a wider sense. Politically the landscape is changing with suffragettes making slow but undeniable progress toward the vote, the Labor Party gaining in strength, unions increasing in influence, and a whole new breed of man like Silas rising up from the working class to find huge success and parlay that into their own jealously guarded empires. As was the case in Netherwood, Sanderson has brought this corner of Yorkshire to life through the landscape, the voices of the characters, and the tensions rising in it. Sanderson has fallen back on a few stereotypes here and there but over all the story is an engaging one and it was good to see the Netherwood characters once again. This is not a bonnet drama but rather a worthy successor to them, a well done period piece with a wonderful authenticity of setting. Historical fiction fans will enjoy it quite a lot.

For more information about Jane Sanderson and the book, check out her website or follow her on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.